"Yes he is," replied Jonni. "He didn't explain everything to me, but this girl named Nora tried to steal the stone and ended up swapping minds with him."
"I... see." replied Gary. "I'd make some comment but I don't want to seem ungrateful. You know what Linda thinks of him; you just heard it." He had a guilty look on his face, as if he had said something rude.
"I'm Liam," said Liam. "Until something is done. This isn't over, I know that."
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Jonni. "You're thinking that Grandpa is a bad guy, but I don't know about that. Just a minute ago he decided he could fix you, Dad, but he couldn't fix you, Mom, and do you know why? He wouldn't do it because it wasn't right. And I agree, now that he explained it. It wouldn't be right. If he doesn't care about other people, why would he say that?"
"Because..." said Liam. "Because... there are different kinds of 'bad guys'. Different degrees. He's not comic book evil. But he's done some things that people shouldn't do. And he could fix me, anyway."
Jonni looked at her grandfather's face. The man-- woman, currently, but she still imagined her grandfather's old face there-- seemed honestly puzzled. "How?" asked Jonni.
"I'd like to know too," said Jack/Nora. "We're in the middle of things. Who knows what could happen at any moment? We have to fix all the wishes as soon as possible."
"Don't make it a mind transfer machine," said Liam. "Make it a body morphing machine. You wish I'm a boy because I went into a body morphing machine, just like Gary went into a mind transfer machine. You can use the machine to change me back, just like you did to him. Or make it a transform ray instead."
"I don't know," said Jack/Nora.
"I do," retorted Jonni. "I wish that Mom is a boy because she was hit by a transform ray gun and being hit again would change her back. And I wish I have this gun."
Nothing happened.
"I wish I have this gun in my pocket."
Nothing happened.
"I was afraid of that," said Jack/Nora. "You'd better ask the stone why, but I think I know. If you could reverse a wish by saying 'I wish this happened because of a machine that I could use again', you'd be able to reverse any wish whatsoever, except the ones where someone said 'and they could never be changed back'. If you wished someone was President, say that they became President because of a ray that changes whether someone is President."
"But there's no such thing!" exclaimed Liam. "A ray that makes people become President is ridiculous!"
"And you thought a mind transfer machine was not ridiculous? Jon, you'd better ask the machine why. And tell it not to change reality in the process."
"Why would I want to...?"
"Just do it!"
"Okay. I wish that when I wish to know something it doesn't change reality. And I wish we know why that other wish didn't work."
They all blinked, as if something was in their eye.
"Do you understand it now?" asked Jack/Nora,
"Yeah, I do," replied Jonni. "A long time ago, swapping you and Nora was a wish. But wishes change reality. Since everyone didn't remember you and Nora always being in each other's body, there must have been some reason why you were swapped. The reason was that you used a mind swapping machine. The wish that did that was before the wish that turned Dad into a dog, so the dog wish couldn't reverse it--the machine could reverse any supposedly irreversible wishes made after the machine was created. When I wished that Dad became a dog because of a machine, the stone took a trip, found that machine, fixed it, and brought it here. I can't reverse other wishes this way unless I was lucky enough to have made the right type of machine before making the wish. Now, there's one more wish I need to make."
"One more wish?"
"Yeah. There's something else I want to ask the stone about. I want to ask it about you. I don't know how the range limit works with this, but..." Jonni gripped the stone tightly and began to say...
